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My car is spewing oil!

1741 Views 14 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  HOK
<crossposted from other club>

OK, So the last couple of days I have noticed a lot of oil on my driveway. Almost pooling. This hasn;t happened since I did the swap so was curious as to what was going on. I changed over to synthetic (2,500 miles on the engine, it was time.) and cleaned the engine up really good (oil everywhere because of no catch can on the left bank yet)

Anyway, I have been checking my catchcan every couple days and noticed there was almost no oil in it so I thought awesome. Then today, about 50 miles after changing oil and 4 days after noticing a lot of oil on my drivway, I open the catchcan and it is completly full! oil was even starting to squirt through the catchcan filter and get all over the engine bay.

I'm pretty sure the pooling oil is just oil leaking off the frame after I stop so I don;t think I have an oil leak. but what would cause such a drastic difference in how much oil comes out the crankcase vents??? I;m stumped.

Eric
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you got an oil pressure gauge? any idea how much..?
i think it's time to make a way to drain this back to the valve cover, would id be possible to hood the r/s valve cover hose to the bottom of the catch can with some kind of shut off valve and just drain it back evervy few days?? or just hook it right to the bottom of it?? do you think that would cause more oil spilling then uou already have?? Sorry just thinking outloud.
I don;t have a gauge for oil pressure but I;m about 99% sure it doesn;t have anything to do with that because the oil is coming from the crankcase vents in the valve covers and their is no direct oil lines there. I hope I didn;t blow out my rings and am getting a ton of ring leakage. I am going ot do a leakdown test tonight. I don;t see any oil on my plugs though so I think I;m ok.

Eric
i think you're allright, i think it's just turbulence in the system causing it. I mean hell the EJ25's spit up oil on a regular basis.
Hndatch627 said:
i think it's time to make a way to drain this back to the valve cover, would id be possible to hood the r/s valve cover hose to the bottom of the catch can with some kind of shut off valve and just drain it back evervy few days?? or just hook it right to the bottom of it?? do you think that would cause more oil spilling then uou already have?? Sorry just thinking outloud.
I'm going to start doing this. The catchcan actually has a petcock on the bottom so it is very easy to drain. I am going to unmount it (Very easy) and just drain the oil back into the oil fill spout every couple of days like you said. Either that or buy a quart of Mobil 1 every 4 days. Yeah right!

Now I just need to get that other bung welded in. Not sure what's makeing so much turbulance all of a sudden though.

Eric
If the rings are allowing much of the pressure to travel by into the crank case (bottom end), wouldn't the oil be spewing out of the center PCV instead of the valve covers? Or would it just cause a backup from the oil draining back into the crank case and therefore it ends up pushing it out the valve cover PCV's?

Well, if that was the case, wouldn't you have air bubbles in your oil, maybe even foaming?
i'm trying to figure out where all the crank case pressure is coming from....bah...there's got to be a way to beat it.
Like you guys, I'm am at a complete loss! I have no idea. I decided to unplug the center breather for even more crankcase ventilation and for the time being put a little milk carton in the engine bay and routed the center and left valve cover breather to it to check how much oil is comeing out.

Now the weird crap! On my way to my Fiance's parents house yesterday, I started getting a crap load of smoke from my hood so I pulled over. Open the hood and Engine oil was everywhere on the right side (where the catch can is). The catchcan was full and oil was spewing everywhere. the milk carton on the left side with the center and Left valve cover breather was was still empty!

WTF is going on!!! I am going ot do a leak down and compression test at my shop tomorrow because I honestly can;t come up with any logical explaination why I;m getting so much crank case pressure and it switches side from time to time AND I;m not getting any oil in my combustion chambers (checked spark plugs and exhaust), even under WOT!)

I drove home today and never got into boost and still had lost about 1/2 quart into right catch can and engine bay. However, on the way over Christms Eve) I was getting into boost and lost almost 2 quarts. Keep in mind that this is about a 5-10 mile drive only. All the oil is coming out of the breathers and not going into the chambers.

THE ONLY possible explaination I have is that I blew a set of rings but I;m not leaking any oil into the chambers and have never seen this before! Plus, I;m running less boost that the stock Turbo Legacy that these engines came in. I'm stumped!

Eric
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***i have no idea what i'm talking about***

but you used the Ej22t head gaskets i recall am i correct... would this have any thing remotely possible to do with it? if not just lay it on me... but i checked my oil plumbling and everything is dry.. i thought it might be normal for some oil to come out... no... my plumbing is same as fitz'....
just trying to help...
If when I pull it out I find a problem with the EJ22T Head gaskets (Which yes, I am using) I will definetly give the EJ25 gaskets a try. Looks like I'll probably be pulling the engine very shortly to see what the problem is. Aaron, I need my cherry picker back :)

Eric
Just did a compression test. #1-3 is 85-90psi but #4 is 55psi. Time to pull the damn engine. I'm about ready to sell this stupid car! This will be my 3rd engine is less than 4,000 miles! :curse:

Eric
Time to pull the damn engine. I'm about ready to sell this stupid car! This will be my 3rd engine is less than 4,000 miles! :curse:
I heard that. Same thing happened with mine this year. 3 engines and a trans. within about 4-5k (around 6 months' time too).

I'm running NA for now, so hopefully no problems arise anytime soon. I should have my fueling down within the next month or so, so hopefully I will be able to put the kit back on late Jan./early Feb.... well, if I can get a job soon. :-/

Look at the bright side... you're only going to have to get a set of pistons and rings, and a few new gaskets to solve your problem. Hopefully you have a dealership that'll lend you their wrist pin removing tool (mine didn't even know what it looked like and just instructed me to go dive in their tools bin and find it myself :lol: ) and keep in mind that you'll have to buy a 14mm allen socket for the wrist pin access hole plugs.
dammit this sucks... lets keep our fingers crossed
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